Kosciusko County Commissioner – Northern District GOP candidates Sue Ann Mitchell, left, and Nathan Scherer answered questions during the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce Candidate Forum on Wednesday, April 24, at Warsaw City Hall. They are running in the Tuesday, May 7, primary. InkFreeNews photo by Leah Sander.

By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — Two of the three candidates for Northern District Kosciusko County commissioner shared more about themselves and their views on Wednesday, April 24.

Sue Ann Mitchell and Nathan Scherer, both Republicans, answered questions posed by local media representatives, including InkFreeNews Editor Deb Patterson, at the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce’s Candidate Forum. They had two minutes to answer each question.

A third candidate running in the Tuesday, May 7 primary, Marcia Baumgartner, didn’t attend the forum.

Mitchell and Scherer were first asked: “Please introduce yourselves and tell why you are running for office.”

Scherer said he’s from Syracuse.

“I’ve decided to run for county commissioner because I’m at a point in my life where I have the time and energy to put into the position,” he said. “I have four children, and quite frankly I’m concerned about my children’s future, not only in this county, but in the world. So I didn’t want to sit idle by and pass up an opportunity to serve and later on down the road have them look at me and say, ‘Was there something that you could have done?'”

“My platform’s pretty simple. It’s family, community and opportunity,” said Scherer. “Those are three things that are very important to me, and I think they’re important to most people. In this community, we need to make sure that we are empowering families, making sure that they have the resources that they need and that we are championing them and working together with them. As far as community, we need to strengthen our community. I’ve been around a lot of organizations in the last few months and a lot of them have a lot of senior people in those organizations. We need to encourage young people to lean in to the community and get involved and participate and help serve, so that we can extend the legacy that has been laid before us.”

“As far as opportunities, that’s where it really is important,” he continued. “At the Barn and Business Breakfast, a lot of kids talked about their desire to live here long term, but the key factor was, would they have opportunities to live here long term?”

He cited a statistic “that about 55% of people in middle school and high school in northeast Indiana are looking to leave after they graduate.”

“I’m just not comfortable with that,” said Scherer. “I want to keep our youth here long term, strengthen our communities and keep our families strong.”

Mitchell said she’d “served the community here for many years.”

“I believe that having somebody at the helm in the commissioners’ office would be a blessing because there are lots of things that are going on,” she said. “Many things are related to historic things, and I believe that you have to bring some of that history forward in order to know the right thing to do and to have that background information. I have served as the secretary for the commissioners as well as the county council, and so I certainly understand the job and I feel comfortable that on Day 1 when I would first sit in the chair, I would be able to take care of anything that came along with the prior experiences that I’ve had.”

The two were also asked: “If you’re elected, what could the commissioners do over the next four years to foster economic growth in our county?”

Scherer said he would work on “quality of place (and) quality of opportunity.”

He noted previously government officials would try to attract new industry with “incentives … and expect people to follow.”

Scherer said people now want to pick a place to live that they enjoy “and then businesses are following.”

He said commissioners should work “to leverage the lakes and the natural resources of this community to attract both businesses and people to work.”

Scherer also said commissioners should do a better job of marketing the area’s strengths, including “quality of life … strong community … and people that care about one another.”

Mitchell referenced what Zimmer Biomet CEO Ivan Tornos had said at the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce’s annual awards dinner earlier this year about Warsaw needing an airport equipped to handle larger aircraft and an easier travel route on US 30.

“He said, ‘You know, you people here have all these wonderful amenities, what you don’t have is a road to get you here and an airport where you can land the big plane,’ and I think those are two of our economic things that we’re going to have to be looking at over the next several years,” she said.

Mitchell noted “commissioners are going to play a huge part in how we handle that and how we can move forward with that progress (of US 30).”

“That progress is going to be critical to our economic growth, making sure that 30 runs on through, but that we have some abilities to get off here and to enjoy our community as well,” she said.

People may view the livestream from the forum by going to https://bit.ly/koscandidateforum.